Can I Get the Definition, Please?

I had a FWB that was fun to hang out with but not one to have serious feelings towards. He was single and so was I, the perfect equation for just having fun. Until I found out from a mutual friend that my FWB had a GF. When I asked my FWB about his GF, he said that they had an open relationship. As in, they could date other people. As in, the 'don't ask, don't tell' rule. People in open relationships want their cake and want to eat it too. Usually one or neither of them really want to be in an open relationship but come to find that that is the only kind of relationship that will work for them. That's the first problem. Although FWB and my 'relationship' was defined by no strings attached and fun for as long as it lasted, I still believed I deserved honesty. I mean the first word of FWB is friend so I deserved to at least be informed. Because the inclusion of a GF usually makes the fun stop and the drama begin. The FWB line becomes fuzzy, the definition of what you are in the equation is unclear.

By the time you are in your twenties, you will have been on a date with somene who already has a girlfriend. You will probably sleep with someone who already has a girlfriend. The time span that you find this out can be within the first five minutes or after the first five months. When you begin talking to someone, hanging out with them in a more than friendly way it is fair to believe that you are the only one he is talking to, hanging out with and it is shocking when you find out that your potential one and only already has a one and only himself. So what do you do? The simple answer is to end the relationship, move on and find someone a little more single. But of course nothing in life is that simple. Because usually by the time you have found this information out, you have already invested feelings of some kind.

I saw my FWB through three girlfriends. Note to his current girlfriend: monogamy is not in his vocabulary. And while I was smart enough to realize that while he had a serious girlfriend, that he and I were never going to be anything more than FWB, I still couldn't help but feel attached. It wasn't the romantic aspect of it. It was more like a project, a mission to try and change him into a person that with a little work could be someone with future relationship potential. I knew it wasn't going to be happily ever after. Knowing him before the talking and hanging out kind of ruined this ideal but I couldn't help but be curious as to why. Why would you have a girlfriend and sleep with someone else? Or okay, okay if it was just for the pure physical attraction, why have conversations that last until sunrise and consist of everything from religion to how you want to raise your children to why you are the cheating bastard you are? Why would you call to tell me all about your new job and have me listen to the reasons why you think you should break up with your girlfriend knowing I would just tell you reasons why you shouldn't. And, most importantly why didn't you just stop calling me like I asked?

Experience, mine and others, has shown that a big part of this need to have a girlfriend has to do with security. Security that this person who deems worthy of the girlfriend title seems to offer because of monetary reasons, willingness to the look the other way, or lack of locality. That makes me non-girlfriend material because I don't have any money, I'm not willing to the look the other way and I am right here. Yet, I am good for moral awareness, late night counseling and the attraction factor, throw in the grass is always greener and the thrill of the chase and I guess it makes it harder to let go.

I know that if karmic retribution was doing its job, then down the road I will be in a serious relationship, be blissfully happy and find out that my true love is seeing someone else. I know that people will say I deserve this and maybe I do. But did you ever think that maybe it's not my fault? It's not the cheatee or the cheater's fault even. It's just a significant snag in the slow unraveling that can always be blamed for the final disintegration of a relationship. There is a reason that it's happening and that reason has nothing to do with me. But I will accept the responsibility. I will accept the blame. But I'm not sorry. If nothing else, it opens everyone's eyes as to what the relationship is really about. Because most of the time, at this stage of the game, I'm able to get out relatively unharmed and he is left still cheating and happy or monogamous and miserable or at best suffering from mediocrity. As far as the girlfriend, maybe she believes she is happy too and if her eyes do become opened to reality, she will have to decide whether to grin and bear it or cut and run. And if you think the true love of your life would cheat on you, if you would accept that, then honestly you don't have to explain to anyone why you will decide to stay. I understand that love makes you do crazy things. It makes you forget how to cut and run.

Love is an imperfect thing. Lust even more so. If you have been the cheater, the cheetee, the other person, whoever, sometimes no one is to blame. We all make mistakes and things happen that break us but, not forever. I know all of you with boyfriends are right now hoping that I have the love of my life cheat on me, that when this happens I will be singing a different song but it's not going to happen. Ironically, I say this honestly, if he is the true love of my life then he will be incapable of doing that to me. You may have room for that in your definition but I don't in mine.